


sui generis

by oonaseckar



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, Identity, M/M, Mutation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23093905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Charles is the only mutant, the only, only one.  Which I guess does make him a god of sorts.A canon AU where ONLY Charles has powers. the only mutant in the whole world.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Raven | Mystique & Charles Xavier
Kudos: 10





	1. I had as lief have been myself alone

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title is William Shakespeare.
> 
> sui generis - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sui%20generis

_Lord, what fools these mortals be!_

_A Midsummer Nights Dream Act 3, scene 2, 110–115_

In the end Charles remains, sitting on the end of the jetty on the lake, with his feet dangling off the edge. He thinks maybe it would have been better if he'd failed to save Erik, and drowned himself into the bargain.

xxx

Erik never quite believes Shaw, not though thirty months of conditioning and testing and exhortations to exceptionalism. Not through a bullet in his mother's breast.

But he never quite manages to shake the conditioning off, either. Not the memory of gates and fences buckling, that day the guards tried to separate him from his parents. And not Shaw's explanation, that fuels his quasi-religious fanaticism: that Erik is different, is special, is _not_ an under and lesser and ignoble creature. Is better, is more: is part of the new breed. A mutant, Shaw says. The incumbent race is birthing them, and rendering itself redundant: making way for something superior.

He's killed, at this point, so much as to make it not even humdrum, everyday. Now, it's boring. If it's not Shaw, then it's just a step on the way. And he's tired of the journey: he wants the destination.

Are we there yet?

But eventually, if you have a plan and you follow it faithfully, you come to the climax. Eventually he's deep in Miami waters, the coldest waters that qualify as warm that he could ever imagine. There are tears stinging his wet eyes, because it's _never_ worked, he didn't believe for a _reason_. And if Shaw's own pet theory doesn't come through, then he can never give Shaw what he richly deserves.

If his mutation is not spurred on, given an outlet, spawned by rage. Because if _this_ isn't rage, what he feels, then no-one has ever felt rage. He's melting and deliquescing with it. If metal melted and boiled to a white-hot froth, and could tell you about it, then-

But he fails. There's nothing, no gift, nothing, no power, nothing, no way to end and stop and kill and rend Shaw till he, not even till he _suffers_. Not pain, not punishment, that's not even the point: so that he understands, _that's_ the point: so that this cretin, this _moral idiot_ can finally, finally understand everything he's done to Erik, to Edie, to Jakob, to every mortal sobbing suffering victim that's passed through his hands.

There's nothing, though. Shaw escapes, unknowing, uncaring, and Erik has failed, has given of his best and failed. He feels his lungs' and heart's last surge, and, well, not exactly accepts. But he has nothing more.

So he sinks, and he lets breathing become a reversed perverted process where the water fills him, all the empty spaces. It's painful then it's not. Everything is grey, light and then darker then dark. He thinks of his mamma one last time, says good-bye, it's the end.

Strong arms wrap tight around him now, but he's too drugged and slowed to fight or respond. He has nothing, no resource to rely on or back him up, if this is ill-meant.


	2. whoever fights monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik couldn't enact vengeance. But possibly someone else can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Nietzsche.

Words fizz up and flower in his head like sunflowers, and it's embarrassing how long it takes him to realize he's underwater, this is in his _head_. Towards the surface they journey, towards bright harbor lights and starlight, and a comforting monologue that isn't his own hymns him along the way. It warns him of danger, and begs him not to fight, is tender, understanding, something close to loving.

Not an enemy, then, not a hater. He doesn't think.

No. someone like him, like he's supposed to be. Oxygen hits him, and oh how it hurts. Water and pin-bright cold and a bright flushed smiling face, bobbing so close. Alone, that's what he'd always thought, despite Shaw's delusions. Even if Shaw was right, how could anyone else be such an aberration?

The smile's wide, wider, as intense and pleasured as anything he feels himself. 'You're not alone, Erik,' this someone promises him.

But how can that be true? Alone is what he's always been.

But he's too smart to argue, or too distracted even. Because the sub, the sub has risen again, and not just that but it's back, has come _back_. He feels how glazed his face is: and this strange, demented freak, this fairground trickster paddles and laughs at him, wet-faced and pink and clearly delighted.

'Where on earth did you think I came from?'

From someone who speaks in his head as easily as out loud... he shrugs. A fallen angel? The devil, a delusion? Caution arrests him: and he pushes back in the water, warned and alarmed. But he's only grabbed again.

'Don't worry. Come on.'

'For what?' Erik spits it: pushes him away, there's a wet and splashy jostling, the first trace of annoyance on this stranger's face.

'What do you think? I've wandered through your mind in soft slippers, Erik: I know what you're here for. Not quite the same as me: but near enough. Let's waste no more time.' He's gazed at, assessed consideringly: then abandoned. His savior launches into a steady stroke, and leaves him to follow or not.

Erik could trust him, and be duped. Or trust him, and see Shaw's spittle run red. Either way, three hundred and sixty seconds ago, he was dying, and now he's not. He has precious little to lose.

Erik swims.

xxx

His savior is welcomed back on board, with blankets and minions rushing, and anxious concern. Erik follows on close behind, dripping, elation subsiding. Heart sinking. He hasn't thought this through. He has no powers: it has been effectively, comprehensively demonstrated. Powerless, he's an efficient, professional killer: with backup, or a lone target, or at least some weaponry. Here, half-naked and wet and surrounded, he's a sitting duck.

He doesn't mind _dying_. He minds, would mind – will mind, very much – not taking Shaw with him. The man who's brought him to this strange and pretty pass elbows forward, drags him along, pulling his blanket close and shivering. Past the red-faced Russian barking startled, reproving concern, past his silent, glowering friend, past faceless nothings who are not...

Shaw. Shaw steps out from behind his lackeys, hand out, not to Erik but to Erik's companion. There's glad welcome on his face. It's strange to see on the old monster.

'Charles, what on earth? You just went rushing off, Azazel here says he couldn't stop you. My boy, are you all right?'

In the moment of truth Erik tenses: betrayal and delivery into the hands of his enemy, or what? What is it going to be?

'I brought a friend to meet you, Sebastian,' Charles says.


	3. become a monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik has his chance, after all. But can he go through with it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Nietzsche.

His voice trembles with the chattering of his teeth: but the grin on his face makes Erik wary, as Charles pulls him forward. 'I believe you're already acquainted.'

Finally, finally he exists: finally Sebastian Shaw's eyes meet his, and for all he has nothing, nothing to back him up, he _owns_ the bastard now. Whatever it takes. But he needs the moment of recognition: he needs Shaw to understand, before he dies. And it takes so long, so long: how can it take thirty seconds, a minute, a minute and ten seconds... There. He sees the moment, the tiny light dawning in those cold eyes.

'Little Erik,' Shaw says, smiling pleasantly. Always that smile: no matter what hell he was putting Erik or anyone else through. Always smiling, like blood and scalpels were being passed at a garden party, not by a nurse with pitiless eyes. It's only a moment of attention: he used to command so much more with this man, used to be the focus of his labors, his pride and pet project. But Shaw has something else on his mind: looks away to the cocky, stylish Russian, and snaps, 'Seize him.'

And Erik stiffens himself to leap, but doesn't leap. He doesn't move, but no-one moves. No-one except Charles. Charles edges forward a little, between him and Shaw.

Erik is the only one who's not surprised. He's had a little advance warning, at least. He can see the shock, the outrage, on every other face: but he'd express his own, if he could. There's a pretty plump-faced blond girl, six feet, fifteen degrees over: Charles takes two steps, snaps fingers in front of her face and she moves, jerks, screams at him. 'A little warning, Charles! For God's sake!'

Still wet and still shivering, he's never seen anyone so casual as his companion. The man shrugs, unconcerned enough to make a point. 'Give it a rest, darling.' He looks around, starts a little, seems to remember something. Snaps fingers at Erik too, and now Erik is free, can move.

Doesn't waste a moment, either. Explanation can wait, so much can wait. Bounces the coin up out of his pocket: because, no matter how many times it's proved, you never know... And there would be a beautiful poetic justice to it. If now was the moment, the moment his gift, his curse came though for him.

Up close, to the immobilized bastard, and Shaw, Shaw glares at him. Even now the bastard hasn't the sense to know fear. All the glint in his eye conveys is provocation, is defiance, is maybe even a sick pride. If he kills Shaw now, with power over metal, then in a way Shaw is vindicated.

But Erik doesn't care. He tries: anyway. Watches the coin in his palm, struggles and concentrates: feels the other man loom behind him. He doesn't know what the story is, with him and the girl. Doesn't care to know, either. He tries, and sweats, as if belief will help. The coin's in his palm, and that's where it remains.

He can feel, not see, a slight sink, a release of tension in the other. 'Oh. You have no power. It's not going to happen, is it? But it was so clear, in your head...' He sounds crestfallen, disappointed. Maybe a very slight touch aggrieved.

Erik is crying, but it doesn't matter. He's a long way beyond silly considerations like pride. Shaw's face is frozen, too much so to smirk at him: but it's there in the eyes, and he can't bear to see it. He turns away, to face the other, and vents because he can. 'Sorry to disappoint you,' he spits, eye to eye, ramming it home.


	4. more dangerous are the common men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik will have his justice. But he won't have it alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Primo Levi.

"Never mind, love," the other says mildly. 'I should have looked more carefully. I was a bit worked up, with you ready to expire, and seeing yourself scoring a bullseye in his brain so vividly. How many times have you imagined that? It was practically a Cinemascope production, from your brain to mine. Ray, love,' he calls, looking back, to where the girl is staring into the face of the Russian's handsome companion, up closer than someone able to control their body would allow. 'Would you mind getting the drinks? I feel the need to uncoil.' She stares back at him a moment, at Erik too, and shrugs, locates what appears to be a gilt drinks-cart in a corner, fiddles with bottles and brings them both a stiff gin. Erik would have preferred a beer, and it suddenly seems bitterly funny that he actually momentarily considers expressing a preference. It's ridiculous. He stares around them: at the forest of furiously immobilized statues, as if the White Witch had gone crazy in a Narnian fantasy submarine vessel of wood and iron, as if Aslan might stroll through and announce the imminence of festivities at any moment.

'Yes,' this fey boy-man agrees. 'Very silly. I'm Charles, by the way. And my sister,' he indicates. 'Raven.'

Raven reaches for his hand, making a delighted social face, exaggeratedly polite. 'I'm Erik Lehnsherr,' Erik says, looking for somewhere to begin, a foothold he can lodge himself upon. 'And...'

'And never mind all that,' Xavier says abstractedly. 'I know awful lots about you already, however erroneous some of it might have been in the initial flurry, and Raven... well, Raven is rather tiddly and won't care or remember.' She swats him at this, then goes over to bend the silent chap comically over a comely rating, stuck in an awkward position that's going to give him terrific neuralgia. 'So let's elide our way though the niceties,' Xavier says, suddenly brisk. 'My powers are – well, impressive, frankly. But this -' he nods around – 'is rather testing them, at the moment. And you have a task at hand. Might you prefer to get on with it, while circumstances are conducive?'

Erik is blank a moment: then Xavier twitches his head in Shaw's direction, and Erik sees what he means. 'After all,' Xavier says comfortably, 'old traditional methods will do the job perfectly well. If perhaps a little less satisfying that what you had planned, after everything he put you through.' He responds to the lift of Erik's brow, to the unspoken question. 'Oh, my dear. All that, too. _I_ know. Now, are you going to attend to him, or must I melt his brain myself? I was meaning to attend to the matter, you know.' He nods, and his wide, innocent blue eyes are beautifully sincere. 'After wringing everything he'd learnt about mutation and interesting powers out of his head, of course. Why else would I take the trouble to become the associate of such a repellent little man?'

Shaw seems to catch his eye: at least his wanders from Erik, to the frozen, somehow diminished, withered old Nazi. (Shaw's a demon, but a strong demon, in Erik's head. To see him now, captured, set aside at other's leisure, is... delightful.) 'Sorry, my dear,' Xavier says, twitching his head to one side, his courtesy suddenly not sincere in the least. 'You _are_ a dreadful little man, though. And the irony is so, well, unsubtle: you, obsessed with mutation powers, destroying lives over decades in your search. And me, your prospective financial backer – the only actual mutant you've ever actually had in your filthy labs, and you so utterly unaware.'

The girl wanders closer. Her glass sloshes: you could only count the fingers of spirit in it if you held your fingers vertically. 'Oh look, he's surprised,' she says genially, sticking her face up close to Shaw. 'Yes, Charles was going to rip you apart, old love,' she says, extremely loud, as if Shaw were deaf, not immobile. 'But only after you stopped being useful. Like your lab-rats, hm?'

'Just as you say, my love,' Charles agrees, patting her on the shoulder as she leans into him. 'How nicely you put it. But now, I think Erik must take precedence: his claim upon Herr Professor Schmidt's hide is greater than mine.'

Raven gives a little whine. 'I was looking forward to it, Charles...' And he pats her lovely hair, smooths it down.

'I know, darling. We had it all planned. But take it from me, Erik has... well, you don't want to know how he's earned it, but take it from me, he quite has. And so, the end is near, and so we face, the final curtain. No,' he amends, swiftly, chucking Shaw – all three of them, so close, looming over the frail old man – under the chin. It's affectionate, patronizing, would be terrifying to anyone less arrogant than Shaw. His rheumy, unclear old eyes still blaze defiance. The old fool. 'Not us. You, my old love. Erik,' he says, with an inviting, egging-on gesture. 'Have at it. Don't hesitate, man,' he urges, as Erik does precisely that, a swift glance down to his clenched fist. 'Be a little creative. You can still get the coin in there for the sake of dramatic irony. Put a knife through his eye socket and shove the coin up his arse.'

Raven giggles.


	5. Chapter 5

When it's done, then _underwhelmed_ would about cover it.

"I thought it would give me some kind of peace. _Something_. I thought I'd feel more." He stares down at Shaw, at the ugly grey thing he is now, an object but hardly a person.

And Charles looks at Erik in turn, a terrifying unreadable stranger. He's up close, but the distance seems immense, unbridgeable. There's a quirky little smile on his pretty face. But, "Did you, love?" is all he says.

Erik has to have a mission: he knows no other way to proceed, having been trained up from a young age. In that moment, he fears what the next one will be. He fears that it might be to turn to pursuing Charles. Oh, but surely _not_. Is it an old romance novel he's occupying, a gothic suspense, _woman-in-peril_? 

He's been an acolyte before, however unwilling, however Stockholmed. An acolyte _again_? To be jealous, when this soft, frightening stranger takes a fancy to the next pupil?

Charles talks to Erik, nonetheless. The chains are forged, as cigarettes burn and drinks are poured. The ship's abandoned: _de facto_ householders, they occupy at their leisure.

Raven is annoyed, bored. She makes drinks, they drink, she gets drunk, she heckles.

Erik has put on a show, for her. But she's ravenous, for more.


	6. either we are alone in the universe, or we are not.  both [possibilities] are equally terrifying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles, pensive and alone in his cabin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Arthur C. Clarke.

And then, there’s how Charles sees it, himself.

They stay the night on the boat. After all, no-one’s going to be coming after them. Charles, and Erik, both, have taken care of that.

They can take their pick, of the master bedrooms, luxury, silks and satins. But Charles throws his backpack into a crew-member’s cabin, and slings himself, too, onto the bunk. Careless and heedless.

 _Dissatisfied_ , you might say. But that wouldn’t cover it.

He can’t _not_ think about Erik: after that let-down, of finding himself not twinned, not with a brother in mutancy, after all.

 _Erik_ isn’t alone. But Charles is. Still. He hangs his head down, hair falling loosely over the edge of the bunk, and lets a ciggie burn his fingers. Because pain isn’t enough to lift him out of lethargy, now.

Oh, what a damn fool. He’d really believed it, for those few minutes, before the thesis was conclusively disproven. He’s alone in the world: again. He can tell: can reach out, and feel… nothing. He can tell, because he’s a _telepath_. And he’s _that_ powerful, yes. Reaching out the world over, to no answer, to _crickets_.

He did so much think he might not be alone, when he rescued Erik: because Erik’s mind was shouting so loud with emotion, Charles had thought he might be projecting, momentarily, be another telepath. But no.

Not even a mutant of any kind. Just a regular old Nazi hunter: mundane. And with Charles as a guest on Shaw’s boat, to hold him down for Erik to feast on, quite casual, right there, for Erik’s revenge.

But now Charles is mopey and uninterested. Because he’s alone.

God damn Shaw, though. As a Nazi, he’d been trying to create mutants, but failed. He was obsessed. And then there was the irony: that he had _no idea_ about Charles.

And Charles had of course been planning to kill him anyway, due to his rather horrid Nazi activities.

No-one is ever a mutant, no-one is ever kin to Charles. No matter how lovely they might be, how fond Charles might become. Emma wasn't, after all, and if ever anyone was born to rule–

Raven – she’s not. That makes him very sad, sometimes.

How misleading a vivid imagination can be, to a telepath. Now, to find out that — after all –- Erik _didn’t_ move the gates. (Perhaps it was an earthquake, that fooled Erik and Shaw both?) Oh, and of course he didn’t move the coin either, _couldn’t_ have moved the coin. (Wish fulfilment: Erik dreamed it in his head, misled Charles with the ferocity of his desire to go back, to force a bloody goddamn expressway through Shaw’s skull.)


End file.
